diamond geezer

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Thanks for the multitude of 50th birthday, birthday weekend and birthday week suggestions you provided yesterday, BestMate and I are truly grateful! I've juggled them into approximate categories in the table below, the least likely at the top. Please don't be offended if your suggestion ended up higher rather than lower. Some or other of these activities may occur next month, cheers. And if you have any further ideas, please use yesterday's comments box.

Er, no
• An evening event you need to dress up for
• Take the train to Halesworth (Suffolk) and see if you can trace the route of the Southwold Railway
• Go for a run!
• Sample the artisanteas in Hitchin
• An all-day hangover after a jazz night
• A day at the horse races
• Start drumming lessons

Probably not
• Visit a London museum (to relish having outlasted a variety of luminaries)
• A treasure hunt across London
• Go behind the scenes at the South Bank, and get tickets to an event
• Visit 575 Wandsworth Road(it's pre-booked)
• Some sort of Experience Day package

But it’s March...
• A balloon flight over London
• Make the mystery count go up to 1 (but this only counts in Feb)
• Visit somewhere you've always wanted to go and that's reachable within the limits of your one week/finances (it'd be better in the summer)

Riskily weather-related
• Go up The Shard (with or without a celebratory meal) (and enjoy a cocktail at Aqua Shard)
• Visit every church and place of worship in the City of London ending upon the roof of One New Change watching the sunset behind the Dome of St Paul's.

A bit too social?
• As lots of your avid readers will be at work in London, why not spend the day visiting us all?
• Announce a Central London venue the day before where you'll be for, say, 50 minutes around 5pm?
• A celebratory glass of champagne and gathering on the Dangleway
• A flash mob up the Orbit
• Hire a 50 year old Routemaster
• Go on your first Saga holiday

A bit too far?
• Dutch Flyer to Amsterdam
• RailSail to Dublin/Belfast
• Take a Beck's Brewery tour in Bremen
• Very cheap flights are available to Kiev/Kyiv
• Go watch Selma at the cinema. The march took place on 09/03/1965. Then follow the route in Montgomery, Alabama precisely 50 years on.
• Visit some interesting trains and stations in NZ

A bit too existential?
• Pick a fear and face it;
• Plant a tree;
• Compliment a stranger;
• Do something your mother would have liked;
• Take a holiday from blogging;
• Shock your senses.
• Stay at home in a darkened room and slowly rock back and forth while sobbing uncontrollably and mumbling about your lost youth

Very 50, maybe...
• See what locations are 50 miles from London and take your fancy.
• A day out in London (or elsewhere) spending exactly £50
• Bus route 50 (Croydon to Stockwell)
• 50 minute walk through your favourite part of London (and telling us why)
• Visit 50 locations that were significant for some reason in each year you have been alive

Very 50, hmmm...
• Write a list of 50 things you have never done before, and try to get them done in 50 days/weeks/months.
• Find out how far away you can get from London for £50 by either bus, train or plane
• Collect up £50 in coins. Go all around London giving it away to good buskers, buying sandwiches for those sleeping in doorways, buying copies of the Big Issue and so on.

Very 50, naaah...
• Place 50 £1 bets on a series of events happening on the day and in the weeks ahead and see how the results turn out
• Do a "DG: then and now" post with selfies from each of your birthdays starting from age 1
• Eat 50 Creme Eggs, drink 50 cups of tea and 50 bottles of Becks
• A 50 pint 5-day pub crawl

Go Norfolk
• Go spend the day with your old man and brother in Norfolk and do something they will enjoy.
• Take the train (via Ely) up to your family in Norfolk for the weekend. On Monday 9th wake up surrounded by family. A Segway ride at Blickling Hall in the morning, then lunch, leaving the afternoon for a walk to Blakeney Point, driving back to Norwich station for an evening service back to London.

Things I have actively researched
• From Battersea heliport you could take a sightseeingflightoverLondon with you and BestMate (from £150 I think)
• Sunday overnight sleeper to Fort William (waking up in the Highlands), then coach to Oban, scenic train to Glasgow, and train home Monday evening.
• Indulge that thing you never blog about, and then tell us absolutely nothing about it.